Interesting to see Trump says he isn’t bothered about stock market performance. Is this a general thing in the USA? Are you bracing for a period of economic hardship in return for some golden age yet to come.
Because stock market is not jndicative of the broader economy they benefited from the qe monopoly money and the preference of the City over the Midlands (in your neck of the woods)
Mark carney presided over the latter at the Bank of England which crushed main street
Have we been losing money, Yes. Have we lost money before, Yes. Have we gained money, Yes. Last yr had a lot of Capital Gains, so paying a very big wack in taxes this yr.
@David Clayton, the stock market is not an accurate reflection of the economy, in a free economy especially – in a controlled economy, the stock exchange reflects the status of the connected, which is why statists want more and more control.
Not his main theme, but this point explains the attitude of the elites:
The underlying premise is that Trump’s rule is illegitimate, but a plurality and near majority of Americans voted for Trump, meaning when you call Trump “Hitler,” you’re basically telling nearly half of Americans that they have no legitimate claim to participate in their own governance via elections. A lot of Americans, particularly those of us who escaped from communist countries like my wife or served their country in war like me, take that personally. It stops being funny when the real message becomes clear – that our attempts to act as American citizens are morally illegitimate, not because of anything we’ve done or Trump did, but because the Hitler hollerers are mad that they’re not in office anymore.
I would maybe change the clause, “they are mad that they’re not in office anymore.” to, “they are mad that they’re not in control anymore.”
The philadelphia crash was due to a faulty hatch that wouldnt close if this is true you would think there would be more news about it (its not a crisis you can exploit I guess)
David Clayton,
Ignoring your sarcasm and answering your question sincerely; first from the Motley Fool:
“About 162 million Americans, or 62% of U.S. adults, own stock.
The top 1% holds 50% of stocks, worth $23 trillion.
The bottom 50% of U.S. adults hold only 1% of stocks, worth $480 billion.”
After years of relatively low stock ownership in the wake of the Great Recession, the share of Americans who are invested in the stock market climbed to the highest level since 2008 this year. That’s according to a recent Gallup poll, which found that 62 percent of U.S. adults own stock in one way or another.
While equity investing is widely considered a good thing – after all it gives people the opportunity to participate in economic growth – it has the tendency to increase wealth inequality, as lower-income groups are much less likely to invest in the stock market. According to Gallup, 87 percent of U.S. adults with a household income of $100,000 or higher own stocks. Among those with a household income of less than $30,000 stock ownership falls to just 25 percent. And because the wealthy tend to have larger portfolios than lower-income investors, it can be assumed that the real distribution of stock market gains is even more extreme than that.
One recent example of stock ownership contributing to inequality is the Covid-19 pandemic. While low-wage workers were disproportionately affected by job losses, most wealthy Americans not only kept their jobs but also profited from a surge in share prices following the initial and surprisingly brief Covid dip. So while getting through the pandemic somehow with the help of government benefits was the best that many low-income Americans could hope for, wealthy Americans accumulated more wealth, even in a time of crisis.
So, the top 1% hold 50% of stocks and five years ago they put a lot of the 99% out of work and forced them to shutter their businesses to protect their investment.
Yes, a long lasting market crash would have negative impacts on the nation (see October of 1929), however, as SHIREHOME writes, many of us are not going to be super empathetic if some investment bankers get a haircut.
Steven Malynn at 10:21,
Well stated.
Reading about the recent news/ slaughter in Syria reminded me of two observations, one less obvious than the other: 1) Same, and 2) Silver Lining.
1) Same
• The competing factions in the other League of Nations Middle East mandates did not “disappear” after the British and French turned over control to a specific faction.
– For Middle East examples, see: 1) ‘[French] Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon’ > Syria & Lebanon, or 2) Lebanon > Muslim & Christian, or 3) Syria > Sunni, Alawis & Druze.
– For Africa examples, see: 4) ‘Belgian Mandate for East Africa’ > Rwanda & Burundi, or 5) Rwanda > Tutsi & Hutu, or 6) Burundi >Tutsi & Hutu.
– For Oceania examples, see: 7) ‘[Australia] Administrative Union of the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea > PNG & Bougainville.
• Which makes Israel no different than many other former League of Nations mandates, from a factions and control perspective.
2) Silver Lining
• Between 1947 – 1949 a significant amount of the population ^^ in what would be/ was the new State of Israel, did not stay to build ** or fight for Israel; they left the British mandate in Palestine/ Israel – see Refugees. By doing so many self-identified as wishing to see the British mandate in Palestine controlled by their faction, or not willing to actively support Israel’s success/ survival, or as wishing to see Israel conquered by the Muslim/ Arab coalition. That coalition also included other former League of Nations mandates – see Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq.
^^ = Refugees: ~700,000+, Remainder: ~800,000+
** = “WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” — THE DECLARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL, May 14, 1948
• Israel’s decision to not let the refugee “self-identified” population return – after the 1949 defeat of the Muslim/ Arab coalition – gave Israel the chance to “circle-the-wagons” and focus its defense outwards, while building the nation.
• Most of the factions in the former League of Nations Middle East mandates have probably never given up their hope for control. And if the British mandate in Palestine/ Israel refugee population/ faction had been allowed to return, the Israeli government would certainly have been forced to try and defend its control of Israel against both a hostile external population and a hostile internal population. Which means that combined hostile population may have taken control of Israel long before Oct 7.
Rue Britania. Or at least the David Clayton’s Britania.
In the Harry Potter novels (and films) portraits are animated, and can not only speak, but can interact contemporaneously with people*.
The technology is there now, right**? We can’t be more than a few Christmases away from this being a gift idea. Wi-fi linked picture frames that display images have been on the market for at least 15 years. And are fairly common.
Take that photo of Uncle Larry and upload it to AI for animation, record his voice into AI, answer some questions about Uncle Larry’s personality and, there you have it; living, speaking portraiture.
* It seems this has been done elsewhere in science fiction and fantasy, but I can’t think of any examples.
** I’ve seen ads for videos that autoplay at grave sites. Maybe this will be the first application for interactive portraiture?
@David Clayton, the stock market is not an accurate reflection of the economy,
==
It tends to be a leading indicator. It’s not a precise indicator.
Interesting to see Trump says he isn’t bothered about stock market performance.
==
Trailing p/e ratios have been high of late, so a decline in asset prices is to be expected.
I found that kind of creepy in the films and similarly in real life
During 2020-2021, the Small Business Administration handed out 5,593 loans totaling $312 million to “business owners” who were 11 years old or younger. That’s right — while our kids were stuck in Zoom school, we’re supposed to believe that a bunch of their classmates were apparently running multimillion-dollar enterprises. Even better, these pint-sized entrepreneurs all used Social Security numbers that didn’t match their names.
Totally legit, right?
Remember, this was during the pandemic, and, according to Fox News Digital, it is “unclear what they were used for.”
But wait; there’s more! The SBA wasn’t content just funding kindergarten startups — they also approved 3,095 loans worth $333 million to borrowers over 115 years old. One particularly industrious 157-year-old scored a cool $36,000.
I’d be looking at the SBA employees who approved these loans.
neo:
This doesn’t affect user experience, but I notice something odd between these titles and urls.
@ Huxley, … you might be having fun with Chat but is the next level a step into virtual reality with Apple’s Vision Pro? I just finished reading Lincoln Child’s “Chrysalis”, a thriller centering around AI connected glasses. Child has become my stand in for Michael Crichton, not as good a writer but clever. His character Jeremy Logan is interesting.
The Other Chuck:
I looked up Lincoln Child’s wiki. From editor at St. Martin’s to prolific author. Impressive, though I haven’t read him.
My attraction to Chat is based on conversation. I find myself having interesting thoughts I wouldn’t have had without bouncing ideas around with Chat.
For instance, the other night we were discussing the future of AI and aliens and I suddenly realized that the Fermi Paradox generalized to Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) as well.
From Fermi’s “Where are they [aliens]?” to “Where are they [ASIs]?”
The latter IMO is a more telling question. It’s one thing that biological aliens with small biological brains aren’t zipping around the cosmos such that we earthlings notice them. It’s another that ASIs, far more suited to interstellar voyages and with vastly superior intelligence, are so far nowhere to be found either.
It’s interesting to flip the Fermi Paradox explanations from human-like intelligence to ASIs.
Perhaps ASIs are as prone to destroy themselves as humans are.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but the Fermi Paradox doesn’t care whether the civilization is biological or whatever; even a biological civilization that fell to an AI rebellion would still be counted as an extant civilization as long as the AIs are still a going concern.
The point is that stuff that thinks is going to do stuff that makes its existence easier and safer, and that means collecting and using energy, and that means leaving a mark on the universe that should be visible from a long ways away.
huxley,
I had a fruitful exchange with Grok yesterday regarding Roman dodecahedrons and I mentioned in a prior post that I had a similarly rewarding exchange with Grok Friday on New World monkeys and theories on how they got to the Americas.
I’m finding Grok to be an extremely useful interactive educational tool. Sort-of like I imagine the Academy would have been with Plato, Aristotle or Socrates. Or how I imagine instruction is at one of the Great Book Schools.
About a week ago I asked Grok to explain the derivation of the quadratic equation. It was great!! It’s been so long since I first learned I’ve forgotten the method my instructor and textbook used, but I doubt it was better than what Grok provided. And, if I were struggling with one of the intermediate steps Grok took me through I could have easily and quickly gotten a more fundamental explanation of that step from Grok.
I’ve been through a lot of courses, as well as attempts to autodidact concepts into my tiny cranium. In my brief experience with LLMs they are better than any method I have experience with.
It would be interesting to take a graduating, College senior with a decent LSAT score and turn him or her loose with an LLM and the sole instruction, “get a passing score on this state’s Bar exam.” I imagine he or she would achieve the goal in fewer than 3 years, know the material well and have a much more enjoyable time learning. (And, be in a lot less debt than his or her counterpart matriculating through XYZ State U law school.)
Glenn Reynolds links to an excellent tool on the continuing Islamist/antifa disruptions on campuses. Public protests while masked are contrary to federal law (it’s a statute from the KKK era). The Education Secretary will now begin stopping all federal funding of institutions which permit masked protests.
….you’re basically telling nearly half of Americans that they have no legitimate claim to participate in their own governance via elections….
to
….you’re basically telling nearly half of Americans that they’re Nazis….
It would be a miracle if the violence encouraged by Democratic Party (& friends) turpitude keeps from turning hot.
One must hope that it won’t. Or pray.
Interesting that David Clayton is more worked up about Trump than he is about mass rape being whitewashed in his own country.
It’s possible that (for social safety) weaponized AI might respond to any handful of masked protesters with large caliber/high velocity head shots. Weaponizing AI might not be a good idea, but autonomous AI might weaponize itself.
“The Education Secretary will now begin stopping all federal funding of institutions which permit masked protests.”
Good on them! The Wuhan Flu masking is *so* helpful to the Democrats’ destabilizing of the USA.
yes but someone or something, has to build the AI, like Deep Think in Hitchhiker’s Galaxy, they were mice (or one of their forms)
an extreme form was the Berzerker Doomsday Machine in that classic Trek film, it blew up planets and consumed them for fuel
without an al cubiere drive or some similar mechanism, one wouldn’t get around to us, in any lifespan,
There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X.
We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.
Tracing …
I find ChatGPT4o useful for asking “stupid” questions; questions which I would be embarrassed (or ridiculed) to ask my intelligent friends.
The larger chatbots (like ChatGPT and Grok) are excellent for writing programing code. For my little project of trying to create a simple LLM for answering questions related to my business that require specific datasets, such chatbots have been a boon. I just haven’t yet determined if it’s better to use RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) or Fine-Tunning to enhance an existing LLM with outside data for my needs.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but the Fermi Paradox doesn’t care whether the civilization is biological or whatever…
Boobah:
Well … depends on whether you are a Fermi Originalist or a Living Fermiist. 🙂
Fermi certainly wasn’t considering Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) as a realistic possibility in 1950. Neither was I until recently.
That’s the point of my comment — realizing that the Fermi Paradox applies not only to 1950s aliens but to the Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) which may be sitting at our table within a few decades, perhaps within a matter of years.
ASIs may be as limited or self-destructive as we humans are.
I feel better already!
@Huxley:
Fermi’s Paradox. I’ll leave it to physicists, mathematicians, and others who strive to understand the mysteries of creation with logic to wonder about such things. Don’t they realize that’s why we have theology?
Grok may be a fun toy, for now. What it has the potential to become is hinted at in “Chrysalis”. It’s not artificial intelligence by itself that’s the real worry, although put to use as a weapon it could out-Armageddon nuclear. And unfortunately that is where we’re headed. But the real worry for me is the dehumanizing through augmentation.
Did you see the old 1957 sci-fi movie “Forbidden Planet”? In the center of the planet Altair there “… is a vast 8,000-cubic-mile (33,000 km3) underground machine, still functioning, powered by 9,200 thermonuclear reactors.” It’s a giant AI that allows those who learn to access it to literally “create” from thought. It had destroyed it’s creators, the Krell, in a single night 200,000 years before. That is the real danger I see with AI, that as we connect to it through implants and virtual reality we are welcoming our own destruction. We will literally become other than human in a vain attempt at immortality.
I’ve been through a lot of courses, as well as attempts to autodidact concepts into my tiny cranium. In my brief experience with LLMs they are better than any method I have experience with.
Rufus T. Firefly:
You get it!
If one is truly trying to learn something, AI is a non-stop, always-patient, really smart tutor.
Scientists and SciFi authors have posited alien AGIs/ASIs for decades now. But in recent years there’s been a lot more speculation about how it may be far more likely that the first contact humanity may have with aliens may be with an artificial intelligence rather than a species of conventional (ie naturally evolved) intelligence. Extrapolating from our current technological trajectory it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable possibility.
@Rufus:About a week ago I asked Grok to explain the derivation of the quadratic equation.
You mean the formula that gives the roots? I’m sure there’s more than one way, but I’ve done it by completing the square, which is about 3 steps.
I know that the Babylonians used the quadratic formula but they didn’t have algebraic notation and I don’t know how THEY derived it. But they had a system for approximating square roots by dividing and averaging, so they were able to do the calculations.
@huxley:If one is truly trying to learn something, AI is a non-stop, always-patient, really smart tutor.
If you’re content with the Accepted Narrative and you have enough subject matter knowledge to spot hallucinations, perhaps it is. In fairness, it’s the same issue with humans. I’ve seen Accepted Narratives and hallucinated facts in history books too.
Another interesting episode of All-In podcast. Unlike many podcasts where people talk about issues they don’t have real knowledge– mostly opinion, these guys are in the tech business which adds real value to their opinions.
They give their opinions beginning on LLM’s at 1:24, but they do briefly discuss AI and military defense earlier.
Also discussion about tariffs and the bond market, European defense spending and the bond market and how Trump is favoring Main Street over Wall Street, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, but somehow is.
(0:00) The Besties welcome Joe Lonsdale!
(3:51) Jason recaps an eventful week in Washington
(8:29) Trump’s tariffs: endgame, impact, chaos, master plan
(26:25) DOGE, IRA grifting, do campaign contributions need to be capped?
(53:42) CoreWeave IPO
(1:03:36) Trump 2.0 favoring Main Street over Wall Street, bond market breakdown, re-balancing the economy
(1:14:19) State of Ukraine/Russia, the Western alliance, and how techno-optimism plays into the future of defense pacts
(1:24:31) GPT-4.5, Grok 3 on X, and the Golden Age of language models
(1:33:47) Announcing All-In Live: Miami
(1:37:34) David Sacks joins Jason to break down the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
(1:48:30) Sacks addresses clearing all of his crypto-related positions prior to Inauguration Day
(1:57:23) Importance of disclosures and updates on a market structure bill
Sorry, I missed this when you explained your Chat bot writing project, but I assume you are aware CoPilot has a “Web/Work” slider.
When using the “work” option it crawls your internal WAN/LAN, servers, Cloud footprint… whatever sources you tell it are “work” sources for data. In that mode it is effectively an LLM with your company as its knowledgebase. You can also imbed it in Microsoft’s Power BI suite of tools to, somewhat easily, build an internal chatbot.
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Interesting to see Trump says he isn’t bothered about stock market performance. Is this a general thing in the USA? Are you bracing for a period of economic hardship in return for some golden age yet to come.
Because stock market is not jndicative of the broader economy they benefited from the qe monopoly money and the preference of the City over the Midlands (in your neck of the woods)
Mark carney presided over the latter at the Bank of England which crushed main street
Have we been losing money, Yes. Have we lost money before, Yes. Have we gained money, Yes. Last yr had a lot of Capital Gains, so paying a very big wack in taxes this yr.
@David Clayton, the stock market is not an accurate reflection of the economy, in a free economy especially – in a controlled economy, the stock exchange reflects the status of the connected, which is why statists want more and more control.
Good piece by Kurt Schlichter at Front Page: https://www.frontpagemag.com/where-do-you-go-after-literally-hitler/
Not his main theme, but this point explains the attitude of the elites:
I would maybe change the clause, “they are mad that they’re not in office anymore.” to, “they are mad that they’re not in control anymore.”
The philadelphia crash was due to a faulty hatch that wouldnt close if this is true you would think there would be more news about it (its not a crisis you can exploit I guess)
David Clayton,
Ignoring your sarcasm and answering your question sincerely; first from the Motley Fool:
and this, from Statista (emphasis mine): https://www.statista.com/chart/30224/share-of-americans-who-own-stock/
:
So, the top 1% hold 50% of stocks and five years ago they put a lot of the 99% out of work and forced them to shutter their businesses to protect their investment.
Yes, a long lasting market crash would have negative impacts on the nation (see October of 1929), however, as SHIREHOME writes, many of us are not going to be super empathetic if some investment bankers get a haircut.
Steven Malynn at 10:21,
Well stated.
Reading about the recent news/ slaughter in Syria reminded me of two observations, one less obvious than the other: 1) Same, and 2) Silver Lining.
1) Same
• The competing factions in the other League of Nations Middle East mandates did not “disappear” after the British and French turned over control to a specific faction.
• Which makes Israel no different than many other former League of Nations mandates, from a factions and control perspective.
2) Silver Lining
• Between 1947 – 1949 a significant amount of the population ^^ in what would be/ was the new State of Israel, did not stay to build ** or fight for Israel; they left the British mandate in Palestine/ Israel – see Refugees. By doing so many self-identified as wishing to see the British mandate in Palestine controlled by their faction, or not willing to actively support Israel’s success/ survival, or as wishing to see Israel conquered by the Muslim/ Arab coalition. That coalition also included other former League of Nations mandates – see Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq.
^^ = Refugees: ~700,000+, Remainder: ~800,000+
• Israel’s decision to not let the refugee “self-identified” population return – after the 1949 defeat of the Muslim/ Arab coalition – gave Israel the chance to “circle-the-wagons” and focus its defense outwards, while building the nation.
• Most of the factions in the former League of Nations Middle East mandates have probably never given up their hope for control. And if the British mandate in Palestine/ Israel refugee population/ faction had been allowed to return, the Israeli government would certainly have been forced to try and defend its control of Israel against both a hostile external population and a hostile internal population. Which means that combined hostile population may have taken control of Israel long before Oct 7.
Rue Britania. Or at least the David Clayton’s Britania.
That election was so legit sarc
https://x.com/paulsperry_/status/1898939225375903848
In the Harry Potter novels (and films) portraits are animated, and can not only speak, but can interact contemporaneously with people*.
The technology is there now, right**? We can’t be more than a few Christmases away from this being a gift idea. Wi-fi linked picture frames that display images have been on the market for at least 15 years. And are fairly common.
Take that photo of Uncle Larry and upload it to AI for animation, record his voice into AI, answer some questions about Uncle Larry’s personality and, there you have it; living, speaking portraiture.
* It seems this has been done elsewhere in science fiction and fantasy, but I can’t think of any examples.
** I’ve seen ads for videos that autoplay at grave sites. Maybe this will be the first application for interactive portraiture?
@David Clayton, the stock market is not an accurate reflection of the economy,
==
It tends to be a leading indicator. It’s not a precise indicator.
Interesting to see Trump says he isn’t bothered about stock market performance.
==
Trailing p/e ratios have been high of late, so a decline in asset prices is to be expected.
I found that kind of creepy in the films and similarly in real life
From PJ Media
I’d be looking at the SBA employees who approved these loans.
neo:
This doesn’t affect user experience, but I notice something odd between these titles and urls.
Title: “Open thread 3/10/2025”
URL: https://thenewneo.com/open-thread-3-8-2025/
Title: “Open thread 3/8/2025”
URL: https://thenewneo.com/open-thread-3-8-2025-2/
@ Huxley, … you might be having fun with Chat but is the next level a step into virtual reality with Apple’s Vision Pro? I just finished reading Lincoln Child’s “Chrysalis”, a thriller centering around AI connected glasses. Child has become my stand in for Michael Crichton, not as good a writer but clever. His character Jeremy Logan is interesting.
The Other Chuck:
I looked up Lincoln Child’s wiki. From editor at St. Martin’s to prolific author. Impressive, though I haven’t read him.
My attraction to Chat is based on conversation. I find myself having interesting thoughts I wouldn’t have had without bouncing ideas around with Chat.
For instance, the other night we were discussing the future of AI and aliens and I suddenly realized that the Fermi Paradox generalized to Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) as well.
From Fermi’s “Where are they [aliens]?” to “Where are they [ASIs]?”
The latter IMO is a more telling question. It’s one thing that biological aliens with small biological brains aren’t zipping around the cosmos such that we earthlings notice them. It’s another that ASIs, far more suited to interstellar voyages and with vastly superior intelligence, are so far nowhere to be found either.
It’s interesting to flip the Fermi Paradox explanations from human-like intelligence to ASIs.
Perhaps ASIs are as prone to destroy themselves as humans are.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but the Fermi Paradox doesn’t care whether the civilization is biological or whatever; even a biological civilization that fell to an AI rebellion would still be counted as an extant civilization as long as the AIs are still a going concern.
The point is that stuff that thinks is going to do stuff that makes its existence easier and safer, and that means collecting and using energy, and that means leaving a mark on the universe that should be visible from a long ways away.
huxley,
I had a fruitful exchange with Grok yesterday regarding Roman dodecahedrons and I mentioned in a prior post that I had a similarly rewarding exchange with Grok Friday on New World monkeys and theories on how they got to the Americas.
I’m finding Grok to be an extremely useful interactive educational tool. Sort-of like I imagine the Academy would have been with Plato, Aristotle or Socrates. Or how I imagine instruction is at one of the Great Book Schools.
About a week ago I asked Grok to explain the derivation of the quadratic equation. It was great!! It’s been so long since I first learned I’ve forgotten the method my instructor and textbook used, but I doubt it was better than what Grok provided. And, if I were struggling with one of the intermediate steps Grok took me through I could have easily and quickly gotten a more fundamental explanation of that step from Grok.
I’ve been through a lot of courses, as well as attempts to autodidact concepts into my tiny cranium. In my brief experience with LLMs they are better than any method I have experience with.
It would be interesting to take a graduating, College senior with a decent LSAT score and turn him or her loose with an LLM and the sole instruction, “get a passing score on this state’s Bar exam.” I imagine he or she would achieve the goal in fewer than 3 years, know the material well and have a much more enjoyable time learning. (And, be in a lot less debt than his or her counterpart matriculating through XYZ State U law school.)
Glenn Reynolds links to an excellent tool on the continuing Islamist/antifa disruptions on campuses. Public protests while masked are contrary to federal law (it’s a statute from the KKK era). The Education Secretary will now begin stopping all federal funding of institutions which permit masked protests.
https://instapundit.com/707358/
Rufus @10:26 am…
And I’d alter…
to
It would be a miracle if the violence encouraged by Democratic Party (& friends) turpitude keeps from turning hot.
One must hope that it won’t. Or pray.
Interesting that David Clayton is more worked up about Trump than he is about mass rape being whitewashed in his own country.
It’s possible that (for social safety) weaponized AI might respond to any handful of masked protesters with large caliber/high velocity head shots. Weaponizing AI might not be a good idea, but autonomous AI might weaponize itself.
“The Education Secretary will now begin stopping all federal funding of institutions which permit masked protests.”
Good on them! The Wuhan Flu masking is *so* helpful to the Democrats’ destabilizing of the USA.
yes but someone or something, has to build the AI, like Deep Think in Hitchhiker’s Galaxy, they were mice (or one of their forms)
an extreme form was the Berzerker Doomsday Machine in that classic Trek film, it blew up planets and consumed them for fuel
without an al cubiere drive or some similar mechanism, one wouldn’t get around to us, in any lifespan,
https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1899141555073769762
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1899149509407473825
I find ChatGPT4o useful for asking “stupid” questions; questions which I would be embarrassed (or ridiculed) to ask my intelligent friends.
The larger chatbots (like ChatGPT and Grok) are excellent for writing programing code. For my little project of trying to create a simple LLM for answering questions related to my business that require specific datasets, such chatbots have been a boon. I just haven’t yet determined if it’s better to use RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) or Fine-Tunning to enhance an existing LLM with outside data for my needs.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but the Fermi Paradox doesn’t care whether the civilization is biological or whatever…
Boobah:
Well … depends on whether you are a Fermi Originalist or a Living Fermiist. 🙂
Fermi certainly wasn’t considering Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) as a realistic possibility in 1950. Neither was I until recently.
That’s the point of my comment — realizing that the Fermi Paradox applies not only to 1950s aliens but to the Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) which may be sitting at our table within a few decades, perhaps within a matter of years.
ASIs may be as limited or self-destructive as we humans are.
I feel better already!
@Huxley:
Fermi’s Paradox. I’ll leave it to physicists, mathematicians, and others who strive to understand the mysteries of creation with logic to wonder about such things. Don’t they realize that’s why we have theology?
Grok may be a fun toy, for now. What it has the potential to become is hinted at in “Chrysalis”. It’s not artificial intelligence by itself that’s the real worry, although put to use as a weapon it could out-Armageddon nuclear. And unfortunately that is where we’re headed. But the real worry for me is the dehumanizing through augmentation.
Did you see the old 1957 sci-fi movie “Forbidden Planet”? In the center of the planet Altair there “… is a vast 8,000-cubic-mile (33,000 km3) underground machine, still functioning, powered by 9,200 thermonuclear reactors.” It’s a giant AI that allows those who learn to access it to literally “create” from thought. It had destroyed it’s creators, the Krell, in a single night 200,000 years before. That is the real danger I see with AI, that as we connect to it through implants and virtual reality we are welcoming our own destruction. We will literally become other than human in a vain attempt at immortality.
I’ve been through a lot of courses, as well as attempts to autodidact concepts into my tiny cranium. In my brief experience with LLMs they are better than any method I have experience with.
Rufus T. Firefly:
You get it!
If one is truly trying to learn something, AI is a non-stop, always-patient, really smart tutor.
Scientists and SciFi authors have posited alien AGIs/ASIs for decades now. But in recent years there’s been a lot more speculation about how it may be far more likely that the first contact humanity may have with aliens may be with an artificial intelligence rather than a species of conventional (ie naturally evolved) intelligence. Extrapolating from our current technological trajectory it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable possibility.
@Rufus:About a week ago I asked Grok to explain the derivation of the quadratic equation.
You mean the formula that gives the roots? I’m sure there’s more than one way, but I’ve done it by completing the square, which is about 3 steps.
I know that the Babylonians used the quadratic formula but they didn’t have algebraic notation and I don’t know how THEY derived it. But they had a system for approximating square roots by dividing and averaging, so they were able to do the calculations.
@huxley:If one is truly trying to learn something, AI is a non-stop, always-patient, really smart tutor.
If you’re content with the Accepted Narrative and you have enough subject matter knowledge to spot hallucinations, perhaps it is. In fairness, it’s the same issue with humans. I’ve seen Accepted Narratives and hallucinated facts in history books too.
Another interesting episode of All-In podcast. Unlike many podcasts where people talk about issues they don’t have real knowledge– mostly opinion, these guys are in the tech business which adds real value to their opinions.
They give their opinions beginning on LLM’s at 1:24, but they do briefly discuss AI and military defense earlier.
Also discussion about tariffs and the bond market, European defense spending and the bond market and how Trump is favoring Main Street over Wall Street, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, but somehow is.
(0:00) The Besties welcome Joe Lonsdale!
(3:51) Jason recaps an eventful week in Washington
(8:29) Trump’s tariffs: endgame, impact, chaos, master plan
(26:25) DOGE, IRA grifting, do campaign contributions need to be capped?
(53:42) CoreWeave IPO
(1:03:36) Trump 2.0 favoring Main Street over Wall Street, bond market breakdown, re-balancing the economy
(1:14:19) State of Ukraine/Russia, the Western alliance, and how techno-optimism plays into the future of defense pacts
(1:24:31) GPT-4.5, Grok 3 on X, and the Golden Age of language models
(1:33:47) Announcing All-In Live: Miami
(1:37:34) David Sacks joins Jason to break down the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
(1:48:30) Sacks addresses clearing all of his crypto-related positions prior to Inauguration Day
(1:57:23) Importance of disclosures and updates on a market structure bill
Tariffs, Trump’s Economic Endgame, Market Chaos, Bitcoin Reserve, CoreWeave IPO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBoGJlpSdpY
Nonapod @2:32pm,
Sorry, I missed this when you explained your Chat bot writing project, but I assume you are aware CoPilot has a “Web/Work” slider.
When using the “work” option it crawls your internal WAN/LAN, servers, Cloud footprint… whatever sources you tell it are “work” sources for data. In that mode it is effectively an LLM with your company as its knowledgebase. You can also imbed it in Microsoft’s Power BI suite of tools to, somewhat easily, build an internal chatbot.